Pale nail colours are fairly foreign to me. I like my deeps, darks, and brights. I then one day came across a post about Victoria Beckham’s Bamboo White, and how Sinful Colors Easy Going is a suitable dupe, with pictures included. If I remembered where I saw it, I’d link it. Anyway, this got me to googling pictures of both, and they are both gorgeous. It’s a pale, creamy off white with a hint of warm pink. When I saw it at Superstore for all of $1.99, I grabbed one and I wish I’d have grabbed a few!

The swatch below is 2 thick coats with base and top coat. It wore like iron. When I finally took it off, I put it right back on again. I am completely wowed!

I am late to the game for nail art stamping, but I finally found and purchased myself a few supplies for it for my birthday recently, after discovering its pretty darn cheap. I don’t have any “stamping” polishes, and was determined to make the more cost effective regular ones work, and I was so relieved when I could get more use from my collection.

The end goal.

I used Wet n’ Wild Black Creme, Sinful Colors Mint Apple, and Avon Glimmer. The stamping plate I purchased off ebay for an amount so small I don’t remember it, would have been less than a buck. I used the image in the middle for today’s nails.

Two coats Sinful Colors Mint Apple over a base coat, then a stamp with the Wet n’ Wild Black Creme. I free-handed on a smidge of the gold with a fine brush. Applied topcoat. I would prefer the black lines to be thinner, but I’m satisfied with the results.

Turquoise Nails

Turquoise Nails

A while back I also tried to do a version of turquoise nails with a water marbling technique. It was a real pain in the butt, but I guess it turned out ok. I’m not qualified to supply a tutorial for this, but there are many online you can find.

I’m pretty excited about the nail art stamping, and regret not getting into it sooner. I anticipate a lot of posts with them coming up, some better than others, as it’s a bit of a learning curve!

I was stuck waiting for a bus on my way home from an appointment recently, so I decided to use the time to stop into the Shopper’s Drug Mart, which I don’t normally get to do, and I’m sure glad I did! I had some fantastic luck in the clearance section with this beauty, and something else I will be posting later. I found this hiding in a clearance bin for 50 cents! Crazy. Usually the duochromes sell out fast.

Essence Chic Reloaded is a green to pinky-purple shifting duochrome, with a charcoaly grey undertone you can see between shifts of colour. Stunning! As with all of the newer Essence polishes, it dried quickly. This shade took two coats for opacity but looked better with three. My swatches are without a topcoat, and I think it would benefit greatly from one, but I wanted the swatches to show the colour shift properly without a glossy sheen interfering. The brush is perfect for my nail shape and skill level. The only thing I didn’t like about this particular polish was that it seemed to chip faster than my other Essences – a topcoat would likely help with this as well. But for 50 cents, I’m really not complaining. Here are some swatches in various lights, tried to capture the colour shift in each shot!

Essence Chic Reloaded

Essence Chic Reloaded

Essence Chic Reloaded

And also this is the closest I could get to capturing the charcoal grey shift in between the purple/green shades.

Essence Chic Reloaded

And a close up of the bottle, trying to capture both shade shifts!

Essence Chic Reloaded

Love it! Check out your local Shopper’s Drug Mart clearance section, Canadian ladies. There might be good stuff!

I also wanted to take a moment to acknowledge my nomination for a Liebster Award from Madeleine’s Beauty.

Liebster Award

I am happy to link back to her for the recognition, but I am afraid my participation will end there. I find these awards to be kind of spammy/hammy/chain letter like, and they force a blogger into a lot of work they haven’t signed up for, and I would prefer to not be the person giving them that work. I already happily do link to other blogs when it is appropriate (for examples you may check out some of my posts referencing Polly Fragrant and LastContrast) but I am really not interested in spamming my friends. Although it may not seem it, seeing as I have a public blog, I am actually a very private person, and answering a series of personal questions (and then forcing a dozen or so others to do the same) makes me acutely uncomfortable. I did answer a few more personal questions in response to a Very Inspiring Blogger Award which you can check out here. I also changed the rules for that award as well, which I think may have been my favourite part of the whole thing. Call me a non conformist! Thank you again, Madeleine, for your nomination.

Something different for today’s NOTD! I used L’Oreal She’s So Matte and Sally Hansen Celeb City for this look. L’Oreal She’s So Matte is a flat black polish that is pretty opaque in one coat but I used two for this NOTD. I really like the effect, but unfortunately it chips very quickly (like most matte polishes) which might have something to do with not being able to use a topcoat, so I don’t use it very often. I’m not able to find this on their website anymore, so it was probably a limited edition. Sally Hansen Celeb City is a shimmery sparkly silver that has been around for years and is still in production.

First two coats of L’Oreal She’s So Matte, which dried very quickly as mattes generally do. I then used the smaller side of my new nail dotter to add metallic “studs” all around the edges with Sally Hansen Celeb City. With the matte black, it sort of had a look of studded black leather!

L’Oreal She’s So Matte Base, Sally Hansen Celeb City Dots

L’Oreal She’s So Matte Base, Sally Hansen Celeb City Dots

I enjoyed the interesting leathery look for a while, and decided I wanted to see what it looked like shiny before it started to chip. I added a quick coat of NYC Grand Central Station clear coat (which is fantastic by the way). Now I can’t decide if I like it better shiny or matte!

I’ve had this eyeshadow pan for ages but I only seem to think to use it when warmer weather hits. This Stila Gold Glow is a refill baked on a terracotta disk, intended to go inside a round case with a clear twist off lid that apparently sells for an atrocious $37. If I remember correctly, I managed to nab this, along with a Bronze Glow refill buddy (I’ll do that one later), for $12 including shipping from ebay a few years ago. Much more manageable!

Stila Gold Glow is a trio of shades including a beautiful metallic gold, a warm satiny golden brown, and a shimmery ivory shade. The ivory part has a bit too much sparkle in it for me to want to use as a brow bone highlight, but I do like it in the inner corner, and alone on the lid with a strong berry lip. Some swatches in indoor lighting, shade from sun, and flash.

Stila Gold Glow Swatches

The texture of these is similar to most baked eyeshadows in that they are somewhat dry but silky and blendable. The advertise them to be used both dry and wet, however you can use any eyeshadow like that. I use these without an eyeshadow primer as I find that actually makes wear worse for me, my regular foundation does just fine as a base. Shown on my eye here with the gold on the lid, the brown in crease, and the highlighter in inner corner with a tiny bit on brow bone. The photo below includes the rest of the products used for this look, including Clarins Wonder Perfect Mascara (sample size, black) and Milani Liquif’eye liner in brown.

I find these last fairly well all day, even in the heat. They do fade in intensity a small amount, but the effect is still nice as it sort of melds with your skin somewhat for a nice glowy summer look. I do like these, but I would never pay their regular retail price for them. Although they are nice, I find these to be more in line with a better quality drugstore eyeshadow, which is around the price I paid. The amount of product you get is huge as well, so this will (and has) last me a long time. They also say you can use this as a bronzer, but I think that would be too shimmery for me. I will stick to using this as eyeshadow!

I love blue nail polish (as you might be able to tell by so, so many blue swatches presented on my blog). I especially like it on toes. There was an extended time in my teens where I wore nothing but various shades of blue on my toes at all times! I found this pretty blue shade at the local bargain shop for less than $2.

LA Colors Cobalt is mostly aptly named, but it does lean turquoise in certain lights. It’s full of matching blue and silver micro glitter, and needs two to three coats. Some swatches in various lighting!

LA Colors Cobalt Swatch

LA Colors Cobalt Swatch

LA Colors Cobalt Swatch

This bargain polish lasted on my nails for 3 days and was still going strong when I took it off as I wanted a change. There was only minor tip wear. Amazing. Next time I’m in the area I think I will grab a few more, as this formula out performs polishes I have that cost more than five times as much! This shade is what I was hoping Nicole by OPI Sky’s the Limit would be.

It’s exceptionally rare that I am near a Bath & Body Works at all, let alone in one when they are having a crazy good sale on their new stuff! They happened to have their entire new summer line on for $5 apiece, so I made an exception (I’m trying to be on a body care buying break) and picked some up. Considering a full set of the large sizes of the fine fragrance mist (236ml/8oz), shower gel (295ml/10oz) and body lotion (236ml/8oz) would be $15 combined, it was well worth it. From their website, regular prices in Canada are $14 for the fine fragrance mist, $12.50 for the shower gel and $12.50 for the body lotion at the time of this post.

The new summer line (that I could find here) includes Cool Coconut Surf, Hello Sunshine, Peace, Love & Daisies, and Sweet Summer Kiss. I found it hard to get a good sniff of any of them with so so many nice smelling products interfering. I gave up on trying to figure out if I liked them by smell and looked for what the fragrance’s notes were as a jumping off point. I almost went with Hello Sunshine, when I picked up a bottle of Sunset by the Pool and read the notes: White Peach, Exotic Passionfruit and Sun-Warmed Woods. A quick perfunctory sniff assured me it smelled okay. As I have been looking for a more than single note peach based scent for a long time, I decided to grab this one.

When I got home, I decided to look up the notes. Their website shows two different sets of notes! The “Key Fragrance Notes” are still listed as a sun-ripe blend of white peach, exotic passionfruit & sun-warmed woods. But then there was a different breakdown when it came to the top, middle and basenotes, as follows:

As you can see, no peach! Although I suppose apricot is close. Now to me, at first spray this fragrance hits me with pineapple! Not even in the notes! Along with the pineapple is a huge, juicy amount of blood orange. I love blood orange, and all citrus really, so I’m okay with this part too. The super juicy part does last for a good while, longer than I expected. Once it settles, it mellows out to a barely perceptible vanilla wood smell. You would have to really be looking for the vanilla to find it here. It works as a nice smooth base for the rest of the notes. What I mostly get out of this for the majority of the fragrance is a chewy, possibly dried, plummy apricot. This is sweet, but it is more the sweetness of fresh, ripened fruit rather than sugar. Delicious.

Label shows a peach and a hibiscus – there’s no peach nor hibiscus in this. It’s still delicious though!

Sunset by the Pool Label

The fragrance doesn’t last very long, maybe a couple of hours to my own nose, although I’m sure others would still be able to smell it faintly. As it’s a body spray, and not a strong scent to begin with, I wasn’t really expecting huge lasting power. It’s good enough for what it is!

As for the lotion, it’s a decent formula. It absorbs well and smells true to the fragrance, although it does reach the smooth dry down sooner than the spray. I generally prefer my lotions to be more emollient (I don’t know why my skin just soaks them up, it’s not that dry) but it’s good enough for light moisture. The formula boasts shea butter, vitamin E and aloe according to the label. Click for larger pictures.

Sunset by the Pool Lotion Label

The shower gel is as juicy as the fragrance and also performs well. Most shower gels I can’t use for more than a couple days in a row without my skin starting to hate it but this one seems fine so far! The shower gel also contains shea butter, vitamin E and aloe. The label below.

Sunset by the Pool Shower Gel Label

Overall I really like this, especially at the price I found it! I also like to layer it with another summer fragrance I have, which will also be reviewed at a later time. If you’re looking for a juicy, apricoty summer treat, give this a try. If you are looking for something truly peach, keep looking (I will). This will hold the place until I find something really peachy!

Time for a darker, vampy NOTD. I found both these Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear polishes for $1.96! Sally Hansen Red Carpet is a jelly-like red packed with glitter. I thought the glitter was also red, until when I was in the process of removing it off a test nail I noticed it was silver, which was exposed after the jelly red portion came off (you know how glitters can be tenacious). This polish is stunning. Sally Hansen Black Out is a creme black. My old beloved OPI Black Onyx is about gone so I needed a replacement. Black Out isn’t as opaque in 1 coat but it gets the job done.

For this NOTD I painted on one coat of Black Out and let it dry. It didn’t matter if it was completely opaque as I was painting over it anyway. I then added just one coat of Red Carpet, and this is the look that resulted. I love it!

Sally Hansen Black Out & Red Carpet Layered

Sally Hansen Black Out & Red Carpet Layered

Looked even nicer and sparkly in person! Above pictures have no top coat. Dry time was fast as there was only two coats combined. I’m pretty impressed with just one coat of each of these!